Monthly Archives: March 2004

My week was, troubleshoot firewall behaviour, more troubleshoot, a little bit more… are you bored? now write some scripts to read some data from some DB. are you bored? now GO BACK TO TROUBLESHOOTING! I`ll make some data publishing later on about my troubleshootings.

My current task is to use a policy compliance tool to check all of our systems. Find the guessed passwords, Missing OS patches etc… Not to go into the details… The program I am using uses its own database. Therefore it is a pain to make user specific queries to the program…Thank god, for this, they came up with a database converter which dumps the datas to a MSSQL database of anykind. (Thank god for a readable DB, SHAME ON YOU for not being able to dump it on a MYSQL or POSTGRESQL DB server… That`s another story…)

Well… Since I have a lot of data spilling out from each conversion, I had to come up with a DB querying and displaying mechanism to sort/analyse all these junk. First I tried the “reports tool” coming with the converter tool, but two words: IT SUCKS!

I decided to write my own piece of code. For this I had options. (who hates options?) I have to have a Windows user readable output (read: Excel, html, pdf…) I have to use any tool I want for this… I have NO IDEA about MSSQL, I have never used a tool to query it… I have knowledge of perl, php, python and made DB connections using them before.

I first decided to use python and create also a GUI. But I wasted too much time (Since it must be completed ASAP 😛 ) Anyway… I turned to perl and tried to find a MSSQL libs and I was amazed by the choices of libs for DB connections. I had to choose one and eliminate others (i had no time for this 🙂 So I made my decision on using php. 🙂

I had a redhat 8.0 laptop on my hand and I wanted to go on with that. FYI the version of apache coming with RH 8.0 is 2.0.40. Of course, RH was not shipped with php with MSSQL support, so i had to compile my own. I downloaded FreeTDS and installed it to my box. I downloaded PHP v4.3.4 and compiled it. I realized that I didn`t have httpd-devel packages installed on my RH machine. So I downloaded them I `rpm -Uvh`ed them, and tried to recompile php with Apache SO mod support. It didn`t work. Because php 4.3.4 requires apache version >= 2.0.44 (remember RH 8.0 is shipped with 2.0.40, i am 4 versions missing 🙁 )

So the decision is made. “rpm -e `Put here anything related to httpd packages`” Go to hell with RH rpms for apache, php, etc… And than I went to Apache for downloading the http server, and installed it. And than recompile the php with appropriate supports (aka ./configure –with-mssql –with-mysql –with-apxs2=/usr/local/apache2/bin/apxs)
make
make install (as root)
et voilà! I have a running apache server with php supporting MSSQL connections.

Run the scripts I tried earlier.. and BANG! I cannot connect to the database! 🙂 Since i`m a dumbass sometimes and I don`t read the documentations (RTFM Emre!) I realized after reading them (everything post-factum…) that I need to create some DB connection handlers for FreeTDS (checked /usr/local/etc/freetds.conf and edited the lines needed for MSSQL connections.)

[MyServer70]
host = your.host.here
port = 1433
tds version = 8.0

Run the scripts again and TADAAA! My stupid users and their guessed passwords 🙂

Next step is now to create a nice reporting mechanism and modular sytem for compliance queries.

Well long to read, even longer to live it and implement. Ok.. I`m off now, I`m going home….

I was net-surfing, and I saw this page. It gives you and incremental cost of the war in Iraq to US. While the big weapon companies are having fun, all we can do is watch the numbers increasing… How the numbers are generated? What is the algorithm behind? Go ahead and check costofwar.com. So I added anyway on my left menu 😛

Scifi channel has just started its new show mad mad house. It is a “reality” show in which stupids race to get some money. I hate reality shows. They are far from real. They are absurd, and boring. Especially the elimination phase. OMG! this is nothing about elimination, it is for commercials god damn it.

As a pathetic loser audience, we are waiting them to cry, or stay cool, or laugh when they eliminate but you know who is laughing the most? Not the winner of the “show”, not the wackos who are eliminating the others, guess who? TV PRODUCERS! They get paid because we are pathetic to enjoy and brain masturbate by seeing some people getting selected or kicked out of the “show”

This is all about being cool or being the loser. We love to see people lose. We just enjoy seeing the misery of others. Those who love and enjoy the misery of others, i hope you will laugh to your own misery someday.

I was talking about something else. Yeah, reality shows. How much a show can be real? What real life can you bring on TV? The real life is boring. TV would loose money by showing boring stuff. So the real life can never be on TV. Why do they call it “reality TV” then? Because we loser TV watchers want to see other people`s “real” lifes and expect that their life is better or worst than our pathetic work, home, sleep triangle. Guess what? IN REAL LIFE PEOPLE DON`T SCREW EACH OTHER IN A LOCKED HOUSE. IN REAL LIFE YOU CANNOT FIND A VAMPIRE MORON, A HAITI VOODOO MOMMA, A NATURE BOY, etc… SLEEPING IN THE SAME HOUSE TEACHING TO COMPLETE MORONS THEIR LIFE STYLE!!! YOU CANNOT FIND AN EXOTIC ISLAND FULL OF BEAUTIFUL CHICKS AND HANDSOME GUYS READY TO SCREW EACH OTHER. THIS IS NOT REAL. So stop calling it a “reality TV Show”. For more thoughts on misusing words, read my Eckerd Hi-Tech Dental Floss! blog entry.

I don`t like TV 😛

Quote from david: (very cool one)
(00:25:04) david_k: when you put people in front on a lens..
(00:25:08) david_k: they act totally different

Free Linux CD Project (FLCD) has restarted its operations. FLCD is a non profit organization which collects used (or new) Linux CDs from the people who don`t need them anymore and sends those CDs to others who actually need them. (Low bandwith, no connection, No CDburner, No MONEY! etc…) Please contribute the cause.

My friend Asli came to visit us (me and my buddy ozgur) She is our long time friend from Istanbul. She is a math genius and an atomic ant. Anyway we went to NYC to have some fun and show her around. The trip was excellent. We first went to SoHo and ate brunchish food in canteen which i didn`t like that much 😛 It is overpriced for that quality food, but hey this is NYC.

Then we all went to Red Lion bar. We had to give a call to my NY bird friend (turks: you`ll understand this direct translation from turkish 😉 Oktay and his sweet GF to suggest us a bar. At the end of the night we were very very happy that we gave them a call 🙂 They couldn`t join us 🙁 Next time maybe :/ Anyway…

There were two cool bands playing in Red Lion. The first one was two acoustic guitars playing nice music. I couldn`t get their name. The second band was Play on Red. Those guys rocked the club and made everybody dance. even me 😛 Here are some pictures of play on red. I don`t know their schedule but they are good so i recommend you to see them 😉

I don`t remember how we got back to the hotel. But Ozgur was snoring like a mofo so I couldn`t sleep 😛

The morning with 1,5 hour sleep and 7 Guiness beer I had a headache. We had some food in a crappy Times square deli (The quality of the food is inverse proportional with the distance to the times square. Same shit for the price also) and we went to Central Park. I like Central park. Huge buildings and smöll trees. Crowded and alone.

We spent some time there and went to see metropolitan museum. I didn`t get in, instead i watched that dude called laser something, who was juggling, mime, and marionette (puppet) dancing, etc.. (i`m tired)

We realized that Asli was late for her flight, so we dropped her to Penn Station for her to take an LIRR train to JFK airport. (She landed safe to Germany)

I have some pictures of the story. I`ll place them in my album soon. NYC is always fun.